


Where You Stand

by CaptainDeryn



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen, before canon events, imperial agent is NOT Cipher Nine, out of canon events ocs, posting here bc tumblr is stupid with long works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 09:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15191840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainDeryn/pseuds/CaptainDeryn
Summary: Cipher Five didn't make mistakes.He didn't make mistakes, he didn't make grave errors, he didn't make any missteps in his career. It was his merit as an agent, the quality that kept him useful to Intelligence six years into his career. It took one SIS agent to send that squeaky clean streak in Intelligence crumbling down around him and make his superiors positively clap their hands in glee as they typed out a note on his mission description stating 'DISCIPLINARY ACTION'.He wouldn't have had to make an errant holosearch if that damn SIS agent hadn't been hounding his every move on  Aldeeran, being an irritant and threatening his life--or more importantly, the success of his mission--on more than one occasion.So maybe he should have desisted from the conflict sooner, backed off from his mission and waited for her to lose interest before swooping back in. But it wasn't often that his goals crossed with that of a Republic SIS agent's and it was far more interesting to try and slip right under the SIS's nose than to wait for the easy route.





	Where You Stand

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this here because tumblr is ridiculous with formatting long posts (and I have mercy on mobile user's dashes). Thea belongs to my friend delavairesslegacy over on tumblr (find me at captainderyn). 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Cipher Five didn't make mistakes. 

  
He didn't make mistakes, he didn't make grave errors, he didn't make any missteps in his career. It was his merit as an agent, the quality that kept him useful to Intelligence six years into his career. It took one SIS agent to send that squeaky clean streak in Intelligence crumbling down around him and make his superiors positively clap their hands in glee as they typed out a note on his mission description stating 'DISCIPLINARY ACTION'. 

Disciplinary action that sent him to Taris in the middle of a worthless Empire versus Republic fight that would gain neither side anything of worth other than bragging rights, to clean up the mistakes of other agents and to tie up his own loose ends. As if being sent to slog through mud and mucky water and dodge the odd rakghoul wasn't punishment enough. 

Apparently letting his face be seen on mission and a rogue holosearch in Intelligence's databases documenting known SIS personnel was grounds to throw their most used cipher agent to the metaphorical wolves. Or literal rakghouls. He was going to be cleaning the scent of decaying earth and rakghoul vaccine from himself for weeks. Of course, he wouldn't have had to make an errant holosearch if that damn SIS agent hadn't been hounding his every move on Aldeeran, being an irritant and threatening his life--or more importantly, the success of his mission--on more than one occasion. 

So maybe he should have desisted from the conflict sooner, backed off from his mission and waited for her to lose interest before swooping back in. But it wasn't often that his goals crossed with that of a Republic SIS agent's and it was far more interesting to try and slip right under the SIS's nose than to wait for the easy route. Or it would've been, if it hadn't backfired and left them both at a stalemate. 

( "Agent, I have my cross hairs on you. Desist immediately or I will shoot."

Maybe Five should have been worried, instead he rolled his eyes, curled his lip, and shifted on his elbows so he could scan the area with the sighting mechanism of his sniper rifle. Clearly the agent already had a read on his location, so speaking wouldn't be a dead giveaway. If he moved, she'd shoot. If she moved, he'd shoot. 

"So we meet again, agent. Haven't you learned that this doesn't concern you?"   
  
A low laugh and the click of a blaster's safety. Either on or off, he hoped it was on. "Right, you're trying to assassinate a Aldeeranian official that's under our protection. You made it my concern." 

"Assassinate," Five shifted again, trying to find her in the thick, green foliage. There! With her in his cross hairs, he had a clear read on her, a mirialan dressed in the slim fitting black of the SIS's field uniform. Either she was bluffing, aiming only in his general direction that his voice had come from, or she could drop him with one twitch of her finger on the trigger. Interesting. "is such a strong word."

"And what would you call it? A greater deed in service to your Empire?" 

"If the Republic didn't harbor criminals under their 'protection' then I wouldn’t be here. Now let me do my job."

He could see her now, clearly, though he couldn't tell whether or not she had him pinned either. But she didn't lower her blaster and he growled low in his throat. As soon as he pulled the trigger she’d pull hers and no one would benefit from two dead agent bleeding red on Aldeeranian soil. 

“You know I can’t let you do that.” The SIS agent sounded just as calm and collected as if they were simply discussing the weather report on the holonet, not the life of a criminal who’s existence hung in the balance between their two factions. “Desist now and I let you go.” 

“If you don’t get out of my way,” Five shifted on his elbows again–this was getting old and the clasps of his jacket were starting to dig uncomfortably into his ribs–keeping his finger poised over the trigger and her in his sights. If he didn't deliver soon then Keeper was going to get angry and he can't afford a tick against his record. Not when the Sith were sniffing for any sign of incompetence in Imperial Intelligence like sharks for blood. “then I’ll shoot,”

Boldly, the woman called: “You’re bluffing. This is fun for you, some kind of game.”

Dirt flew up in the air in clumps as one of his rifle’s bolts hit the ground near her feet. With a rough, snarling edge his clipped, accented voice carried across the sudden silence between them. “Try me.” 

Bark rained down on him with a crack from the three he was covered under, sparks from a blaster bolt falling with it as he threw himself closer to the ground, an arm coming up to cover his head. “Don’t test me, Intelligence.”)

And so, their stalemate. A stalemate that persisted as their mission continued to conflict and she persisted in hounding his every move. 

Constantly she had run interference to make sure that no matter how many times he tried his mission could not succeed. Predicting his attacks with astounding accuracy, intercepting his spy routes, disabling his equipment. Anything she could to counter his work. Several times he had found himself toe to toe with her on the winding roads in and our of Alderaanian noble’s estates; his SIS shadow blocking his way and their cross hairs trained on each other in a furious stand off. 

But never once did she try to kill him. It would have been so easy for her to drop him with one shot, but she hadn't.   
Nor did he. His finger never twitched the trigger down. To him it was a cat and mouse game, perhaps coupled with a weariness of pulling the trigger, but what was her motivation? Was it a game to her too? 

It made him curious, though it shouldn't have. Curiosity only would, and had, gotten him into trouble. 

Their coupled target and protected never fell to his own rifle’s shot or any manner of poison passed through his hand. Instead the man resigned with several new gray hairs after tips of harm meant towards him were received—Five had had a very strong suspicion of who those anonymous tips came in from—and Five was recalled back to Dromund Kaas, where he sighed inopportune circumstance as his reason for failure. He slid underneath Keeper’s withering gaze and disapproval with a few well placed reassurances and a few stretched truths, but what was his career without a few well intended lies? What Keeper didn’t know wouldn’t kill him, indeed it would probably make his life and job much easier.

Despite his superior’s disapproval and despite the bitter taste of a mission not completed to the letter he still combed through the Intelligence databases during his post mission leave, despite his own better instincts. He needed to know who exactly had been able to match him move for move. 

Confirming her identity as an SIS agent—she had hardly been subtle, the blaster she waved at him was Republic SIS issued only, and her uniform, while not nearly as recognizable as the standard Imperial Intelligence field uniform, was hardly discreet. He had had her pegged for days but had hoped that he could be wrong for once, only once.--was only salt in the wound of his failure and a new, interesting development in his own intrigue. Even her identity as an SIS agent, name redacted still, despite his digging, had hardly been easy to find. It had been buried under heaps of useless cover information, all bullshit to the trained eye. He was hardly able to accept cursory glance information that she was some low ranking civilian. 

A low ranking, government employed civilian wouldn't hound an cipher agents mission. A low ranking civilian wouldn't have the nerve to stand toe to toe with an Imperial Cipher Agent with his cross hairs on her and shoot with a growl of: "Don't test me." 

(Much to his amusement, his datapad alerts later pinged that his own information had attempted to be accessed and a search into the location bounced back as the SIS databases on Coruscant. A search that yielded only a best guess at a designation number and an old holo from his identification icon in Intelligence's databases. Standard--grey uniform, hair slicked back, straight faced and looking into the holorecorder with a resting intensity—and nothing that would offer the searcher any more data than the SIS search had offered him. One click and that holo had been discreetly saved onto a datapad and snuck out of the SIS databases, though _that_  did not reach his knowledge until far, far later.)

But she had seen his face on Alderaan even if for a split second, and heard his voice undistorted. That meant she was a loose end, something that could potentially unveil the shadow, the Ghost of Imperial Intelligence, the ever elusive Cipher Agent to the SIS…or whatever other fancy nicknames they wanted to pin to the agent they could never quite pin down, never get more information on over in the Republic. That was unacceptable, Ciphers didn’t leave loose ends. Loose ends all had to either be tied up in a pretty little bow, or cut right away before it frayed the rest of the string. 

Loose ends had to be eliminated, of course. Dead loose ends had no way to be knotted back together. 

Something, or someone had tipped Intelligence off that his problem SIS agent would be running around the backwater, war torn planet of Taris and within the hour Five had been briefed by Keeper and bundled onto his ship with coordinates locked into his navcomputer remotely under the guise that he would be aiding the field agents. As a low profile, low effort breather mission between his large jobs first, of course. Certainly not because he had breached protocol, failed to eliminate a target entirely, and played cat and mouse with an SIS agent instead of doing his sole duty to the Empire, of course.

He knew the real reason he was on Taris, and he hated it almost as much as the planet itself. 

* * *

  
The SIS agent looked down at her chest with a sigh, inaudible to him from his position among the trees, her shoulders deflating. The cross hairs rested over her heart, a red dot swaying back and forth only by the slight displacement of his body as he breathed. 

“I know you’re here.” 

Something in her voice, a bone deep weariness, caused him to deactivate his stealth generator with a hiss and she found him quickly, a dark shadow materializing in the trees only a few feet away from her. Narrowing his eyes, voice clipped with suspicion, he asked: “Then you know why I’m here?”

Despite the tilt up in his voice though it was not really posed as a question she inclined her head, fixing him on the spot with a blue eyed look brimming with resignation, acceptance; her eyes ringed with the dark marks of exhaustion. “I have my suspicions.”

Five’s aim wavered, his eyes dropping to her still-holstered blaster. It was only a small shift to the left, but the SIS agent followed it with her eyes then looked back at him. “If you know why I’m here then why haven’t you countered me?” 

When her hand shifted to her blaster, unclasping the top of the holster, his entire posture locked back, whatever hesitance he had washing away. Her blaster sent up a puff of dust as it fell to the ground at his feet, and her hands returned to clasp in front of her. “Because you win, Intelligence.” 

“I…” Eyes fixed on the blaster at his feet, then up to his opposing agent again, all his intensity filtered into one confused word. “What?”

Unwavering, even with an opposing faction agent facing her down with a loaded rifle ready to drop her to the ground, she gave a little lift of her shoulders. “I’m tired of this fighting, this killing. I’m just…done.” She unclasped her hands and spread them wide, opening her stance to his shot. “So you can do your job, go back to your superiors, do whatever you do, cipher.” Then, when he didn’t shift, didn’t immediately pull his finger on the trigger, she held out a hand towards him. “On two conditions.” 

At that he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “And what makes you think I’ll take conditions?” 

“Your game doesn’t work if you dispose of every piece, does it?” She didn’t even wait for his response, or lack thereof, instead keeping a wary eye on his rifle while she soldiered on. “You help me tie up my own loose ends, a two week mission max, and I let you do whatever you need to do to tie up yours.” 

It didn’t sit right with him, twinging his gut to think of bartering with someone’s life, even an SIS agent’s. But there were far worse things than moral codes breathing down his neck if he failed to complete this mission. Sith posed a far larger threat and he would do what he had to do, within reason. Lowering his rifle back to his side, he nodded briskly.

“And the second?”

She took a deep breath, looking him squarely in the eyes. “If you swear to me that you will keep my family safe then I won’t try to fight you. Everything I’ve done has been for them and I won’t let harm come to them.”

He may be an Intelligence agent, a Cipher agent, but he wasn’t cruel. At his second nod that momentary fire in her slid back to the calm acceptance. “I accept.”  
And they shook on it. 

* * *

  
He departed Taris within the standard hour, a stowaway crouching in the lousy excuse for a cargo hold until Five had finished his brief meeting with Keeper as far as his whereabouts. Information changed, his target was now fleeing the system. He had elected to go after her on his own volition. Obviously. Keeper swallowed his lie without question. 

“Do you make it a habit to lie to your superiors?” The agent asked, padding out from the cargo hold and following Five onto the bridge. While he bent over the controls to make the jump to hyperspace she slipped into the copilots seat, hands hovering over the gleaming knobs and glowing buttons as she inspected them without touching. 

Cutting his eyes over to her in a glare, Five didn’t dignify the comment with a full response. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” Then his eyes snapped to her wide-eyed look at the controls, her hands dancing over the intricately engineered pieces all working as one elegant machine and offered a small smirk. “Never seen a Phantom class starship before?” 

Stars above, why was he speaking to her? He should just toss her in the empty crew’s quarters after getting the coordinates from her and stay in silence for the remainder of the trip. 

“Never in person, though I’ve learned about them. Does she have a name?”

Five shook his head with a snort. “No, I’m not so enamored with my ship that it needs a pet name. X-70B is enough for the customs terminals.” 

“Well, she strikes me as a Rumor.” The agent murmured, to herself as she didn’t glance back over at him, before reaching for the navcomputer hovering between them. The motion of her hand activated it, casting her face in stark blue light and cutting her tattoos into deep black shadows. “May I?”

At his suspicious look she sighed. “Relax, I’m just inputting the coordinates.” 

As if he could trust that, for all he knew she could be implanting a virus into his ship’s mainframe. Still, he sat back, out of the way, and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. “Fine. Where are your taking us?” 

“The mid city of Coruscant, I presume you know the planet?” 

Five frowned as he watched her punch in the coordinates, he was highly familiar with Coruscant, had been there on several missions and enjoyed none of them. “Of course I’m familiar with Coruscant.” 

SIS nodded, something dark and close to irritation flitting over her face. “Right, I’m pretty sure I worked…never mind.” 

He watched her, the way her shoulders tensed, the way she worried her lower lip between her teeth like she was biting back whatever she wanted to say and let the silence hang before he said mildly: “Did you perhaps work the Senate Tower during the removal of Senator Baz Revani of the Mid Rim Coalition.” 

“Ah.” Her tense posture drooped back as her hands fell away from the navcomputer and she sagged back in the copilot’s chair. “Of course, that was  _you_. I told my superiors you were an Intelligence agent but they just told me I was being too paranoid.”

Five leaned back in his own chair, folding his hands together and turning his eyes out to the blue, white, and black swirl of hyperspace around them. He shouldn’t be having this conversation, speaking on a past mission. But this small connection would be severed within a few days anyways and she was…amiable to the conversation. It was a welcome change from the silence he was often in on his own. From the corner of his eye he could still see the agent, eyes rolled towards the ceiling as she connected the dots that she hadn’t been able to during those tense months on Coruscant. “Should I have been caught then I wouldn’t be quite as good at my job as I am, now would I?”   
  
That earned a small laugh, the woman shaking her head with the air of someone wondering how they could be in such a situation. “You did make a remarkably convincing Associated Planetary Representative, I will give you that.” 

The conversation fizzles out from there, Five not wanting to press into detailed mission statistics. Or, though he’d never let the thought gain steam, he was just afraid of knocking one too many blocks from his walls until they could no longer stand against the pressure of his mission.

They found themselves together on the bridge like that often, passing the few day travel in a comfortable silence. Until she started asking questions, pulling her knees up to her chest as she turned to face him. “Do you have a name?” 

Five hummed inquisitively, so engrossed in his datapad that he didn’t hear her inquiry, or if he did he didn’t look up from his reading. 

“I said, do you have a name? I’m getting a little tired of calling you Intelligence. Or Cipher.” 

Tensing, the only real sign that her words reached him, Five shifted his datapad down to fix the agent with a raised eyebrow. Before he could vet his words, he asked, “Didn’t you dig that up in your search?” 

Immediately her cheeks flushed, darkening her green skin from ear to ear, and for a moment he had her stuck. Completely silent. The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smirk at his little victory. “I… _no_. All I know about you is a Imperial Intelligence connection and your designation number. Supposedly.” Linking her fingers together and twiddling her thumbs, she added softly. “And a small bit about how you work.” Her eyes cut into him with a sudden flash of irritation. “You’re kind of a pain in the ass I wanted to figure you out.”

Five tilted his head, electing to ignore her little addition and not think too hard on the fact that that meant she had been tracking his moves and could potentially plan for what his actions would be and how much that unnerved him—he was used to having the upper hand in his work. It wouldn’t be an issue for long, he reminded himself. Now if he played his cards right.--playing with the power switch on his datapad. “And if I told you if that designation was my name?” 

She scoffed, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling and crossing her arms. “I wouldn’t believe you. There’s a lot of shit about Intelligence, but the rumor that they strip their cipher agents entirely of their identities is ridiculous.” 

He could cede, give her something she wanted to know or even toss an alias her way and hope that that would keep her happy. Or he could shake his head, brush her off and ignore her entirely to return to his reading. Lifting his datapad and switching it back on he let his eyes drop back down to the words. “You may call me Five. Why do you wish to know?” 

“Five?” He could hear the confused—and surprised—laugh in her words. He knew she wouldn’t understand. It was a core difference between the SIS and Imperial Intelligence; pure efficiency, or pure identity. It wasn’t as though he, or the other Cipher designations couldn’t access their past selves if they so desired, but that desire was tightly collared.

“Alright then, Five, if you’re going to kill me I might as well know your name. I’ll even tell you mine.” 

At that Five’s entire posture locked, his eyes cutting back up to hers with the edge of a freshly sharpened knife. “I don’t want your name.” He spat quickly. If he knew her name that’d make his inevitable job harder than it already was, it would add a layer of personality that would make it harder for his finger to close on the trigger. He didn’t need more reason to doubt. He had plenty reason on his own. 

Even so, he could pinpoint in the sudden silence the moment she realized that Five came from his designated rank and number and that it wasn’t just an identification number on his dossier to him. “You really go by Five…as in Cipher Five?”

With a small, curt incline of his head, he clipped: “Just so.” 

She let the matter rest after that. 

As much as he told himself he wasn’t going to allow his walls down, as often as he told himself that he was only being tolerable when he let her walk freely around his ship—only locking the coordinates into the navcomputer so they couldn’t be tampered with and locking the security measures on his ship—he found himself humoring her questions more and more on the five day journey into the Deep Core. 

“Are you from Dromund Kaas?” 

The question was so sincere, so brutally curious, that Five looked up with his brows drawn, wondering if he was missing some underlaying sarcasm. “Am I from Dromund Kaas?” 

She nodded, shrugging at his incredulous look. “I didn’t want to assume, but your accent…it fits the typical Kaasi accent well enough.” 

“Fits the Kaasi accent well enough.” Five echoed back, humor lacing his voice. “I  _am_ , that’s a very astute observation. I grew up in Kaas City.” 

He shouldn’t have given her that information, but the past two days were a study in things he never should have told her. One more thing on the list wouldn’t fix anything now, or take back any of the information she now knew. Besides, it passed the time. 

“What’s it like?” She propped her chin on her hand. “I’ve never been.” 

Five turned away from the system he was tuning, putting his full attention into the conversation and paused to think. When he spoke it was slowly, reverently. “It’s beautiful, with the skyscrapers and all the sky-walks going between the buildings to keep pedestrians safe from the rain. It’s raining more often than not, but it’s the beautiful rain, with great claps of thunder and streaks of lightning…” 

“Do you miss it?” The agent was looking wistfully out the viewport, like she was either trying to imagine the skyline flashing with strikes of lightning or perhaps her own home.

“It sounds like you haven’t been home in a long time.”

 _Home_. Perhaps Kaas City was his home, or at once been his home, but now his apartment on the eastern side of the city with it’s under furnished rooms felt more like a temporary stop than a permanent home. “I do find myself missing the city from time to time. Do you miss yours?” 

She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “I suppose. Though I’ve been traveling so much…” she trailed off with another shrug, and Five let the conversation drift to a close. 

* * *

  
As their fourth day of travel drew to a close, the early hours bleeding into the fifth, Five found himself in his ship’s galley, the lights dimmed to near darkness and the chrono blinking ugly, early numbers at him. He had a datapad glowing in front of him, trying to force his bleary eyes to focus on them so intently that he didn’t hear her enter softly and slip into the seat beside him. 

If she noticed the empty stims laying on the counter she didn’t comment.  “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Not at all.” Being trapped on his ship with her he found himself not minding their small chats, or the hours spent on the bridge together. But there was still one thing he couldn’t puzzle through and while hardly in his well rested right mind he let it slip. “Why haven’t you tried to kill me?” 

She didn’t seem to hold any outward malice towards him. Not once had she tried to pull a knife on him, to hijack his ship and turn the controls straight into the SIS’s hands.

There was nothing except the acceptance of their agreement. He couldn’t figure her out, no matter how hard he thought in the small hours of the morning. 

She answered him by posing a question, dancing around an answer to his question. “Five do you have any family?” 

“I—” He must have family, he  _did_  have family. But trying to reach for those memories was like trying to hold fog. “I do.” He settled for instead looking at her out of the corner of his eye. 

“That’s why I haven’t tried to kill you.” At his confused look, his brows knitting together and the slight shake of his head at his lack of understanding, she sighed. “I’ve always looked after my sister and her nieces. This job…it’s becoming too much. The killing, the danger. I’m tired of it and that puts them in danger too. If this is what keeps them safe and away from the unpredictable ends of my job then fine.” She rested her cheek on her hand. “At least here I can get a promise instead of just leaving them alone and hanging.” 

He supposed he understood, if he had family in his name, a sister or parents that he felt obligated to protect, then he’d give anything for them. He took her answer with a nod.

That bone-deep weariness…he could understand that too. From his position, his power in this situation of his own doing, perhaps it was an odd thing for him to relate to. But years in Intelligence work was abrasive, harsh and cruel and with each passing hour, he began to think longer and harder on if he would truly be able to pull the trigger when the time came.

Instead of responding he shut off his datapad, kneaded the palm of one hand into his forehead, and reached his other hand for a final stim.   
If she noticed that too, she still didn’t comment. 

* * *

  
He still didn’t have an answer by the time they entered Coruscant’s security zone. 

 _“Unidentified Phantom class ship please submit your clearance codes.”_  Five had his hand poised over the holocomm, already preparing his cover in his mind when the SIS agent pushed his hand away and covered the holocomm with her own hand instead.

“Coruscant Security, you’re speaking to Republic Strategic Information Service agent Quayari. Sending security code for a requisitioned ship resh-senth-oh-eight now.” 

After a bloated pause the holo crackled to life again.  _“Clearance granted agent. Proceed to hangar besh-two-zero.”_  

When the connection cut off the agent smiled over her shoulder at Five. “At least my connections still do some good.” 

He had to give her that, true security codes from the SIS worked far better than the ever-shifting false codes that Intelligence planted into the security mainframe. A small inclination of his head was all the reward that she got before he groused. “So now you’ve stolen my ship?” 

“I did say that she was a fine ship.” The agent—Quayari he supposed her name was now that she had spoken it to the Coruscant Security Forces. He really hadn’t wanted to have a name to put to her face.—took his grumbling with a smile, her quiet presence fading now that they were nearing Coruscant’s surface. “The Rumor,” She smiled wider as his nose scrunched at the name for his ship. “Is effectively mine as long as we’re in Republic space. Now, I’d get ready to go planet-side. Maybe ditch the Intelligence uniform,” her eyes dropped to the rank plastered on his jacket, the cut entirely identifiable as Imperial Intelligence, then jumped back up to his face. “For something a little less conspicuous. I don’t think you’ll need all your gear.”

“You still have yet to tell me what this mission is.”

“You didn’t ask and you said you didn’t want to know. So location is all you’ll get.”

He didn’t bother to get the details now, he’d just have to trust her. It wasn’t as though he’d make it more than three steps outside the spaceport with his rifle or his Intelligence uniform on his person anyway. Even a stealth generator wouldn’t work on the security, he would know and had tried. 

So, he granted her the rights to land his ship—with no small amount of grumbling despite her assurances that she wasn’t going to either crash the ship or land them straight into the Republic Strategic Information Service hangar, though she had held up her end of their agreement as of now—as he dug through his well stocked cover supplies for something that didn’t shout  _Empire_  or  _Imperial Intelligence_. By the time he stepped out, favoring a dark long sleeved shirt in place of his worn jacket and a civilian grade pair of trousers and boots instead of Intelligence issued with his hair suitably ruffled to resemble that of someone who wasn’t nearly as meticulous as he was; they were landed in the hangar and Quayari—no,  _the agent_ —was just finishing up the remaining clearance for his ship to remain in the spaceport. 

She hopped off the bridge, raising her eyebrows at his shifted appearance. “You almost don’t look like a disguised agent to the trained eye, impressive.” 

“This isn’t my first time infiltrating Republic daily life.” He said dryly and her eyebrows crept further up, surprise flitting across her features. 

“You’re accent is gone! It’s actually passably Coruscanti,  _very_  impressive.” 

He had focused on diluting his accept into something more passably Republic, the elegantly refined edges of his words shifting and lilting to focus on other sounds when he spoke. It felt odd, as though his Basic wasn’t quite…Basic, but he had done it before and he would do it now. “I do believe my accent would be a dead giveaway as soon as I spoke to anyone.”

Pausing, she drew a deep breath like she was holding back a smart comment at his statement of the obvious. “Well, take the compliment that you don’t sound immediately Imperial. I’ve seen agents from your brood do far worse. Are you ready to depart?”

“I’ll follow your lead.” Five gestured towards the airlock to his ship, electing to ignore the jab at his fellow agents. He couldn’t say he disagreed with her, but giving her the satisfaction of being right was something he couldn’t reconcile himself enough to do. 

They made it through the spaceport without any issue, Quayari’s connection to the SIS breezing them through customs and past any guards, while Five’s own impersonation of a dutiful Republic citizen held sound. When they reached the rented speeder lot he followed her lead still, allowing her to drive the speeder through the busy and traffic jammed airways and tall buildings of the metropolis. He had no desire to try his hand at navigating the chaos with his only directions being shouted distorted through the wind to his ears. She made no veers into dark alleys or any move to run the speeder to her headquarters as he may have expected from any other agent on their own stomping ground.

Instead she navigated the traffic skillfully until pulling into one of the tunnels leading into the mid level of the city, driving them through growing neighborhoods instead of the bustling airways until stopping alongside one of the modestly sized homes. It was quieter here than in the city proper without the constant noise of speeder traffic and the bustling of ships, though there were speeders parked in lines along the home’s driveway. 

As he jumped out of the speeder, Five ran a hand through his wind mused hair and fixed an inquisitive look on Quayari. “Where are we?” 

The smile she turned on him was slightly bittersweet. “My sister’s home. I wanted to see them again before…well, it’s my niece’s birthday and it seemed fitting to tie up my own lose ends, you know?” 

Five recoiled, eyes snapping to the house that he now knew to be filled with…family, people close to the agent standing just in front of him. He had perhaps expected the elimination of an old contact, the sneaking of some information. Not something so mundane with so much unknown. Still, he had promised and despite his building trepidation at stepping into a shark pit of Republic souls he fell into step alongside his SIS companion. He had handled worse, hadn’t he?

She knocked twice on the door before it opened, relaxed with a smile on her face while Five hovered just a step behind her, arms loosely crossed over his chest with his fingers tapping a nervous beat on his arm. Before the door opened he grasped for a cover identity in his mind, sifting through the dozens he had worked with before settling on one that would void any suspicion sent his way and wrapping it around him like a second skin. But when the door opened all the attention was immediately focused on her, not him.

“Yari!” the woman that must be her sister, a homely looking mirialan, threw her arms around Quayari in a tight hug. “I didn’t think you were going to make it, your last message said you were deployed!” 

Returning the hug with fervor, her smile grew. “Circumstance changed, I’m sorry I couldn’t holo ahead.” 

“Oh, Shae and Lennah are going to be so excited to see you, they’re out back, I’ll let them know you’re here.” Then her attention caught on Five, trying his best to be unassuming and stay out of the enthusiastic reunion and her eyes sharpened with curiosity. “Who’s your plus one?” 

“ _Oh_  this is…” Quayari cut her eye’s over to Five, floundering for a name that wasn’t ‘Five’. Giving his Cipher designation would only broker more questions than it was worth and smoothly Five offered his hand and a smile and said: 

“I’m Viktor, pleasure to meet you.” 

“Yeah, Viktor.” She latched onto his cover identity quickly as her sister shook his hand, eying him still with unabated curiosity. “He’s uh…my boyfriend.” 

When her sister’s eyes snapped to her with a newfound shock, Five grit his teeth and narrowed his eyes at her. This hadn’t been a part of their agreement, fabricating a cover story on the spot wasn’t part of their agreement. Playing nice in the heart of the Republic wasn’t a part of their agreement. False cover romances were not part of their agreement. She sent a look his way that read none too apologetic before meeting her sister’s squealing attention. 

“You didn’t tell me you had met someone Yari! You owe me the details as soon as you say hello to everyone.” Stepping back and gesturing through the doorway, her sister ushered them into the house without preamble. “Viktor, my name is Giari, I don’t know how much Yari has told you about us…” 

Fixing Quayari with a disgruntled look disguised as a pleasant glance he said, very pointedly. “You know, she hasn’t told me much.” 

“Things have been very busy,” she supplied through gritted teeth, meeting his look with a warning one of her own. He knew better than to overstep the line that included his identity. That didn’t mean he couldn’t toe it. “And we haven’t known each other for that long.” 

Before their thinly veiled and barbed comments could go any further two young mirialan girls, no older than ten and five, came charging around the corner from the open back door. They both wore the sort of themed decorative party hats, the taller one and presumably the eldest with one fashioned like a crown, the younger with one resembling a tiara. “Auntie!!” The two of them launched themselves at Quayari, very nearly bowling her over. Even so, she laughed and smiled, hugging them both tight. 

“There are my girls, and the birthday girl herself!” Pulling back she planted a kiss on both girls’ foreheads. “It’s been so long!” 

She looked up at Five, eyes shining, the tension from moments ago already dissipated. “Viktor this is Shaeya,” She tapped the taller girl on the head with a fond look, who didn’t hesitate for a moment before waving at Five. “And Lennah, my two nieces.” The younger girl waved too, though with a far more shy look. Then they were gone, bolting off into their group of friends all charging 

Quayari melted into her niece’s birthday party like a welcome relief, spending as much time with the girls as she could catch while her sister flitted around all the other family.

No doubt she was spreading the news that the newcomer, Five himself, was involved with her sister, if the looks sent his way were anything to go by. Trying his best not to draw needless attention to himself Five leaned against the wall in the shade and watched the festivities go on. It had been a long time since he had stepped into anything resembling a regular show of life celebration and he indulged the feeling of relaxation despite the mission weighing on his mind. He did his best not to look at the way his agent smiled, or the happiness in her voice when it carried over to him. 

It became hard to do so when she sidled up alongside him, resting a hand on his arm. Leaning up into his space, close enough that she could lower her voice—and instinctively Five hunched his shoulders to bridge the height between them—she teased; “Lighten up, Intelligence. You look so intimidating.” 

If she was going to tease him…he could play that game. Tilting his head with his own tilted smirk he let his voice drop low to carry between just the two of them. “Apologies, love. Why don’t you introduce me to some people?” 

Quayari cut her eyes between the various people wandering around, then back to Five and narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine, you can play this too. I get it, I sprung this one out of nowhere.” 

“I would have liked to know if I was dating someone.” Five deadpanned in agreement, earning him another narrow-eyed look. “For continuity.”

“Play along, Giardi shouldn’t give you too much issue. I don’t think.” She sounded uncertain of the fact. He made a mental note to make sure he wasn’t going to get himself cornered by his sister for a threatening talk about dating a woman he wasn’t even dating. 

Stars how had he gone from Taris to  _this_? 

Shrugging, he slung an arm around her shoulders casually to ward off the odd glance sent their way, still leaning against the wall. She fell naturally into the crook between his arm and his side, crossing her arms. “Isn’t this a breach of protocol of for you, Intelligence?” 

Quirking an eyebrow, Five made sure to glance around for any eavesdroppers before speaking. “Last I checked being on Coruscant unauthorized with an SIS agent is a breach or protocol, standing side by side the agent is the least of my concerns.”

“Fair enough.” 

Their game continued, always pushing their limits of protocol and professionalism. Sly looks over shoulders, comments made under the breath. 

Playing the role of two lovers, with arms slung around shoulders and words whispered close to ears. No one paid them any extra attention, no one giving Five a second glance after his initial introduction. The game they were always playing—had, in some ways, been playing every mission they had ever run opposite the other—soldiered on, bringing with it a window of time where they could look the other in the eye with a mischievous glint and smirk. He shouldn’t be entertaining the game, he should end it now. Yet still he pressed further. It was…enjoyable. 

He shouldn’t be enjoying it. This was the means to an end. A brief blip in a larger mission. At the end of the day he’d need to make a decision.   
And he found himself drifting away from Keeper’s answer, and forging one of his own. 

Giari found him, standing in the shade while her sister played what seemed to be a game of hide-and-seek with the girls and their friends and settled next to him. “I see the way you look at her..” 

“Hm?” Five cast a cautious glance over at her, tensing though there was no hostility in her voice, only a sappy happiness. Whatever look he may be sending her way…it couldn’t be one of hostility, his surface feelings of hostility towards any member of the SIS had long since simmered down and evaporated away. And any show of ill intent would hardly be met with a doe eyed sappiness.

“The way you look at her, like you’re so deeply in love.” Giari sighed, resting a hand over her heart. Five’s own heart skittered and stopped, his eyes widening. The idea that…the end of his and Quayari’s agreement reared its head, putting a bitter taste in his mouth. The idea that he could have such an emotional connection and still have his Intelligence mission deadline ticking down made his stomach flip. He had seen agents do that, seen what that sort of foolery did to agents. He would never consider being one of them. 

Sure, he and almost every other agent in the Cipher devision had needed to play at seduction to complete a mission. But those were written off as one night stands at best, there was never an insinuation of something deeper. She pressed on before he could refute her, resting her other hand on his arm. “Thank you for being so wonderful to her, my sister deserves everything in the world. After all she’s done for us...” 

Following Quayari’s movements in her searching for the giggling children, nowhere near as hidden as they thought they were, Five’s posture softened along with his sharp look. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about her yet.” 

As if she didn’t hear him right away, and maybe she hadn’t, for his voice had been quiet, Giari continued with her tone softening into one of sadness. “She deserves someone else to be with her. Everything she’s done has been with her family. Even after getting recruited into the SIS after our parents passed she still looked out for me, sending credits home and being there for me every step of the way when I was pregnant with Shae.” 

“It’s good to see her happy with someone again,” she continued, missing Five’s flinch. “I haven’t seen her so drawn out of herself for a long time.” Suddenly she laughed, covering her face with her hands. “Stars, she’s going to kill me for telling you all this, I should go pull the cake out of the fridge before I bore you with her entire life story she doesn’t want me to tell.” Giari slipped away from the wall with a smile in his direction and disappeared through the porch door into her house. 

Five heaved out a breath, dragging hands hands over his face and up through his hair. The distance he tried to keep was shortening with every word someone spoke to him, shortening far beyond what he knew he could ignore. When he looked to Quayari now he couldn’t just see the SIS uniform, the glint of a blaster pointed at his chest. With every moment spent on Coruscant, every smile in a false story they shared, she was growing beyond the agent that had been hounding his every step into a vivacious woman that the SIS documents didn’t even being to encapsulate. 

“Agent?” And there her voice was, curious and a little concerned, cutting through the haze of his conflicted thoughts. “You alright, you look a little spooked?” Then she smiled at him, ever relaxed and without venom when she teased. “I hope Giari hasn’t given you the ‘talk’, she can be pretty intense.” 

He forced himself to focus and relax, shifting his scattered thoughts to reorganize later. Plastering on a small smile he shrugged, running a hand over the back of his neck. “No, no talks promising to put a vibroknife to my neck should..something go wrong.” He stumbled over the words; ‘promising to put a vibroknife to my neck should I hurt you’ falling dead with the fact that that was  _exactly_  what he was supposed to be doing before it even left his lips. “She was just talking about you, is all.”

Quayari’s eyes zeroed on the porch door with vehemence, her lips pressing together into a thin line. “Oh, of course that’s what she was doing. She likes to do that, spill all my life secrets to the first person that will listen.” Glancing up at Five her smile faltered and she broke away to watch the gathered people instead. “Though I suppose it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” 

It was spoken so softly that Five wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it. Instead of formulating a response, or even bringing up the wavering thoughts he was dancing between, he rested a hand gently between her should blades to catch her attention again and nodded towards the door. 

“I think your sister is calling everyone in.” 

Indeed Giari was there, calling for everyone while the group of children ducked behind her legs, clamoring about cake and blowing out candles. Shaeya waded through her and her sister’s friends, crowned head held high until she broke into the house. Watching the isolated chaos was enough to bring Quayari’s smile back, though it was dampened.

“Right, of course. We should hurry in before she drags us in by our ears.”

He dropped his contact on her, though they were forced shoulder to shoulder through the door. A few of the children in their haste to get through the door stumbled over feet, one catching against him. When he steadied the child with a gentle hand on her shoulder to right her without a snarl or curl of his lip he felt the agent’s eyes on him and when he glanced over her expression had softened ever so slightly. Then the moment passed and they were ushered through the door by the few straggling party goers and her sister. Even in the kitchen, where a colorful cake was set on the counter top with just as colorful candles burning on the number ten and children eagerly gathering around the promise of sugar, they were crowded in for space. Pressed to the wall—where he had migrated towards and Quayari had been pushed to follow—they were again shoulder to shoulder, back to chest really, and if he allowed himself a thought it was that she was well and truly happy singing “happy birthday” to a niece that might not get to see her again. 

If he allowed himself the thought, he dismissed it just as quickly. 

By the time they wrapped up their ‘mission’ that hadn’t been a mission at all on Coruscant the chrono on his watch read several hours later, though it hardly felt as though it was nearing evening on the metropolis planet. Standing off to the side with his hands in his pockets after a quiet farewell of a nod and a hand wave to Giari and a soft smile to Quayari’s nieces when they too waved, he watched his fellow agent as she too said her goodbyes. She swept both her nieces into a tight hug, pressing extra kisses to their hair and foreheads. 

“You two be good to your mother, I don’t want any stories of trouble.” 

“Alright Auntie, we won’t.” Her nieces singsonged, sharing conspiratorial glances as soon as they were released from the embrace that read of trouble. Then she stood and turned to her sister, wrapping her in just as tight a hug. 

“Be safe, okay?”  
  
Five ducked out the door then, leaving them to their private goodbyes—and avoiding hearing them, if he were to unlock the part of him that sat sullenly outside the door of his agent mindset, constantly knocking with the reminder that he wasn’t immune to guilt—and walked over to the speeder. He was leaning against the passenger side door, staring at the traffic overhead from the upper levels of the city without really seeing when she joined him. “Ready, agent?” 

She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes and nodded. When she spoke her voice was steady and she slipped into the speeder, closing the door behind her with a bit too much force than required. “Let’s get back to your ship, yeah?” 

They passed the trip in silence, her focusing intently on the airways and Five with his elbow against the door rest, tapping his fingers idly against his chin as he pulled together a list of names and contacts he would need to look at before returning to Dromund Kaas. Even entering the spaceport they walked in silence, three feet of space between them now that their cover had dropped, though still it wasn’t hostile. If anything it was contemplative, ripe with the thoughts both agents were cultivating. 

“Is Viktor your real name?” She finally asked, as they dropped down in the lift to his ship’s hangar. “This is the second time I’ve heard you use it.” 

“It’s an alias.” The lift opened and he stepped out, triggering the ramp for his ship as he crossed the floor. “And before you ask, no I won’t tell you my real name.”   
He told himself he wouldn’t tell her even if he knew what his name had been before becoming Cipher Five. He told himself he wouldn’t reveal that little bit of information if he had it, that he’d instead safeguard it close like some great secret. It seemed unfair, that he knew her real name while she only had some false identity for the agent tasked to kill her. 

“You’ve told me to call you Five, that’s good enough for me. I was just curious.” 

When he paused at the base of the ramp leading into his ship—the  _Rumor_  now, he supposed, if he were to humor the agent—and leaned against one of the struts she nearly ran into his chest. “The name you used, to get us here. Quayari, is that your real name?” he asked. 

She nodded, slipping around him to scale the ramp in front of him. When she paused, only a step or two in front of him, they were eye to eye. “It is. We don’t run by designation.” Where there could have been acid in the words there was only an observation. He’d never understand her, how she met him—as an Imperial Agent, the opposite faction, the opposite side in a war with no end—without hostility where most of her fellow agents would have met him guns blazing. Somehow, in the chaos of their two faction war, or even the ongoing race for information between their two agencies, they had found a middle ground they could both stand on. 

Five followed her up the ramp, making towards the bridge. As expected she followed, slipping into the copilots chair as he began flipping switches and running preliminary checks. He started when he realized that in the hours since they had left his ship had been refueled. “I take it this is your doing?” 

“I had a few strings to pull and figured it’s the least I could do.” 

As he fiddled with the navcomputer she traced her finger over the divots in the control board, waffling back and forth on whatever she wanted to say. “Thank you,” she finally settled on. “For helping me get here, for sticking around. It was…nice to see them a final time.” 

Wincing, he straightened from the navcomputer. “Of course, it was a fair term to agree to.” With a course set to Dromund Kaas he took a step back towards the main room of his ship. “If you’ll excuse me I have something things to tie together before…” The trailing thought was met with a silent understanding. Still no fight, just acceptance, still willing to follow their agreement made in the dark swamps of an awful planet. 

He made it almost all the way off the bridge before she called out, “Five?” 

She was looking up at him, knees drawn up to her chest in the chair again with the whirl of hyperspace behind her. “Can you say it again?” 

Confused, he asked. “What, Quayari?” It felt odd to say, after referring to her as agent for so long. The foreign name flowed differently when punctuated by his native accent’s own sounds instead of when her sister, accented with the voice of someone born and raised in the Republic, spoke it and she gave a satisfied little nod with a small smile to herself that held secret thoughts and looked to the holomap, where the blip of Dromund Kaas blinked. When she offered no explanation he turned on his heel and marked to the empty room he had marked as his own study-like area with a small, confused but humored smile. 

The door slid closed behind him with a soft click, his hand lifting from the control pad. He hadn’t closed that door since he had brought his passenger on board from Taris, he couldn’t keep an eye on her whereabouts on his ship with the door closed, he was leaving himself vulnerable for her to tamper with the ship. But he needed some manner of quiet, he needed the seclusion that door could offer him. He needed to think. 

Was he really going to go through with this? 

He slid into the chair at his makeshift desk, activating his datapad and beginning to comb through sheets of flimsi piled with hand written notes around him for contacts and notes. 

He really was going to go through with this, stars help him.   
—  
They were two days out from Dromund Kaas when he finally collected two datapads from his desk, neat file folders on the main screen of each and slipped into the galley.

Quayari sat at the counter, musing over a cup of caf and glanced up when he stepped in. 

Before a word could be spoken between them he placed one of the datapads in front of her on the counter. “I have a proposition for you.” 

“You do?” Brows knitting together her fingers danced uncertainly over the datapad. There were other ways for loose ends to be cut free, if only she would listen to him. “What kind of proposition could you possibly have for me?”

For a moment he let his entire facade as an Intelligence agent drop, letting go of the chilly demeanor he maintained entirely. “I can offer you a way out. A new life, a new name, no records. No strings attached, I promise.” 

Her hands fluttered anxiously, one still tentative over the datapad like she wanted to comb through it but couldn’t bring herself to, the other tapping a uneven beat on the counter top. Finally her hand landed on the screen and she pulled it over to her, quiet as she poked in and out of the folders filled with pulled together information, fabricated all from his contacts and hints of truth from what he could pull on her. When she looked up at him her eyes were wide. “I…why?” 

“If there is a way for us to solve this peacefully then I want to find it.” For a moment the barriers of their separate factions that had been slowly crumbling with each passing minute were entirely gone. “This is all legitimate. You can walk free from a life you are tired of living, cut those ties completely, and I can go back to my superiors and tell them that you are dead.” When he pushed himself back from the counter and turned away, he added. “Or, you may consider it a change of heart. I’m just as weary if it as you are.”

“I see.” He heard her tapping on the datapad, searching for catch, some loophole that still played in his favor. She wouldn’t find one. “I’ll have an answer for you, before we land on Dromund Kaas.” 

By the end of their second to last standard day of travel she tapped him on the shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts, and held the datapad out to him. “I’ll take you up on your offer. What do we need to do?”

Through the remainder of their travel in the central lounge of the ship they went through each area of her new life like it was the cover identity for any other mission. Anything from the most basic of Dromund Kaas and Imperial life and functioning to trying to nail a convincing Imperial accent. It didn’t take her long until she could spit back the information as if it was second nature, though her words always tumbled over the edges of a foreign accent until she simply buried her face in her hands, laughing with the air of someone who was frustrated but highly amused at their own shortcoming. “I can’t do it, I can’t roll my r’s like that or do that weird little…purr that you do.” 

“I do no such thing.” Five shook his head with raised eyebrows. “A purr? I’m not a nexu.” 

“You should listen to yourself sometime.” She retorted. “Then you’d get it. I can’t mimic it.” 

Five, giving her one last sideways look, poked an edit into the information. “Fine, you’re accent is neutral enough that you can pass as someone who isn’t from the Republic proper. If you were outright Coruscanti it would draw too much attention.” 

She leaned back against the chair cushioned, running her hands through her hair and tipping her head back. “Right, so, I’m from the what, Mid Rim? That isn’t completely allied with the Republic, and ended up in Kaas City…” she waved her hand through the air as she thought, humming indecisively. “In the latest influx of people fleeing from the Republic bombings on Imperial-neutral planets?” 

Nodding along with her words, Five made the necessary edits to keep everything cohesive. “That will work beautifully, most won’t give you the second glance they would if you declared yourself from a Republic occupied planet.” From the bridge beeped a warning that they were approaching Dromund Kaas within the hour. “Right, everything should be in order. I can get you though customs.” He ran through the files laid out in front of them. “You just need to decide on a new name.”

Quayari hummed a bit more at that, bridging her fingers over her eyes. It was something she had been putting off each time he had asked, changing subjects and mumbling half answers until he had dropped it all together. After heavy beats of silence she let out a breath and let her hands drop away from her face. “Thea Xern.” She said softly.

Silently turning the name over in his head the corner’s of Five’s mouth lifted and he handed her the datapad one last time. “You’ll just need an official signature to go with it and then it’s all legitimate.” 

Without flourish she signed her new name and he left her in a contemplative silence, surrounded by the working cogs of her new identity, as he went to the bridge to hear an incoming transition from the Dromund Kaas Spaceport’s security. 

 _“X-70B incoming flight please state your identification and relay your ship’s information for verification.”_  

“This is Cipher Five with Imperial Intelligence, sending my ship’s information now.” 

 _“Verified, welcome back Cipher Five.”_  

Welcome back indeed, welcome home to the very superiors of his that he would blatantly lie to in a few hours time. A lie that should have flamed guilt but instead only brought a sense of peace. There was no turning back now, and there had never been any chance of turning back. This was the right path. 

He turned his head to let his voice carry back into the main area of the ship. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes.” 

“Got it.” She called back, the slightest tremor in her voice. “I’ll be ready to go.” 

Landing in his designated hangar proved to be simple work and even through the walls of the hangar and his ship he could hear the steady hammer of the rain. The sound amplified when he lowered the ramp of his ship, shoulder to shoulder with…Quayari, the agent; he had known her by many names in the span of a few weeks. The Kaas City skyline rose outside the shimmering forcefield that covered the entry for ships, the sounds of speeders and bustling Kaasian life blissfully familiar. Tilted his head to the side, he looked at the woman standing at his shoulder, with her wide eyes and datapad clutched tightly in her hands as she took in the opposing skyline. 

“Welcome to your new life, Thea.”


End file.
